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“You were willing to give up the talisman for me,” she whispers.
“Of course I was. There’s nothing in the world more valuable to me than you.”
Smirking, she gives me that teasing look that melts me, every damn time.
“I may use that to my advantage,” she warns.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Nicolette
It was a risk, taking the talisman. I knew that it was.
I also knew that if Fabien had had the chance, that’s exactly what he would have done.
Instead, he chose me.
I may never fully understand why I’m so special to him. Why I matter to him the way that I do. But sometimes, we don’t need to fully understand something to accept it as truth. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Fabien loves me.
I knew then, when he tossed me over his shoulder like the caveman he is and ran with me, that he’d given up what mattered to him… for me.
Bringing Savannah to me… means the world to me. I never dreamed he would do something like that.
Fabien looks at me and reaches for my hand as we head inside a nearby hotel to meet up with Savannah.
“Do you know what the Emperor Napoleon used to say?”
“I’m told he said lots of things,” I say teasingly. It seems he hero-worships Napoleon, which is kind of cute… in a hot guy mafia sort of way. Even tough guys like him have their boyish moments.
He opens the door. “Impossible n’est pas français.”
“Impossible isn’t French?”
“Right. It doesn’t mean that nothing is impossible for the French people. It means that impossible isn’t in the French language.”
“Ah. So a general statement indicating we can do whatever we set our minds to, like a sort of old-fashioned motivational wall poster, with a touch of patriotism.”
Fabien snorts. “Exactly.”
I open my mouth to say something witty or intellectual that will spark his eyes with that light that makes my heart beat faster—when I see her.
My sister, pacing the sprawling, well-furnished lobby of this luxury hotel while gesturing with her hands, talking to a man in a suit. My heart turns over. She’s so beautiful and precious, and I love her so.
Taller than I am by a few inches, Savannah’s willowy and delicate. Her mane of wild, formerly strawberry-blonde curls, now a shocking shade of highlighter pink, is piled on the top of her head in a precarious bun. And what happened to her glasses? She stares at me with wide, brilliant hazel eyes, for about two seconds before she squeals.
“Oh my God! Oh, I missed you so so so much!”
I brace myself so she doesn’t knock me over when she runs at me full force and slams into me with a hug so big she takes my breath away.
“Savannah,” I manage to croak while Fabien looks on with concern, likely trying to decide if he needs to extricate me so I can breathe again. “I missed you, too.”
When she releases me, we both talk at once.
“What happened to your hair?”
“I just got here! Did you see the free mints in the bowl up there? And the appetizer tray? And the champagne?”
“It’s pink! Your hair is pink! And no, I just got here.”
“It is, my roommate dyed it before I left! I’m done, I did all my classes as fast as I could, and it took some serious pulling of strings and almost killed me but I survived.”
“What happened to your glasses?”
“Contacts!”
Fabien clears his throat. We finally both stop chattering and look over at him. It isn’t until then that I realize people are staring, not just at me and Savannah but him.
“Can I suggest a more private place to catch up?”
Savannah stares at him for a few seconds, before she looks back at me and says in a whisper obviously loud enough for everyone to hear, “Is this your mafia guy? You did not tell me he looked like that.”
“Savannah!” I hiss. “Hush.”
Fabien’s lips twitch. The man she was talking to, apparently someone who works for him, stands as still as a statue and doesn’t say a thing. Fabien walks over to him and they speak in hushed tones before he turns to her.
“Fabien, meet Savannah. Savannah, Fabien. Savannah, Fabien’s the one responsible for flying you out here.”
She lets me go long enough to throw herself bodily at him and give him a huge hug. He looks a bit bewildered before he finally pats her back awkwardly. “Nice to meet you.”
I laugh out loud and take a moment to appreciate this—the two people I care about most in the entire world, right here, where I can reach out and touch them. Safe. Secure. No more pressure of a job to complete or a bill to pay or anything other than the peaceful knowledge that for now… all is well. My heart swells.
Fabien hasn’t gotten to the bottom of the attacks on his family, but I get the feeling that it’s pretty normal for him. And while I have mixed feelings about who he is, and what his family does, I’ve learned enough through my own experiences to know—life is very rarely a picture-perfect postcard.
